The Whereabouts

Meng Zu tied the four vampires to chairs, hands and feet bound, and lined them up. Their faces all bore marks like they had been burned by red-hot branding irons. Meng Zu splashed a basin of water over their heads, and the four vampires immediately woke up.

"Fuck! You're dead, human."

"Bastard, let us go!"

"Damn it, I'll drain you dry!"

The other three vampires glared at Meng Zu as well, spouting threats from their mouths.

Meng Zu was instantly puzzled. Were these four vampires idiots? In this situation, they still dared to provoke him. Were they stubbornly fearless, or just too stupid?

They had come from out of town and dared to attack ordinary people. They clearly did not seem very bright, so these four must simply have low intelligence.

Meng Zu sat in front of the long-haired vampire and pulled a silver dagger engraved with a cross from the pocket of his coat. Other than his wallet, which he carried on him, everything else was kept in his Storage Space. Otherwise, he would never have made it through airport security. Taking things from his pocket was merely for show.

"Sizzle..." Meng Zu slowly and lightly drew the tip of the silver dagger across the back of the long-haired vampire's hand. A smoking cut immediately appeared, accompanied by the stench of singed hair.

"Fuck!" Veins bulged on the long-haired vampire's neck. His eyes widened as he screamed in agony.

"This dagger was blessed after being soaked in holy water by a cardinal. It can inflict tremendous damage on creatures of darkness. I paid five hundred thousand dollars to get it."

"Don't worry, I won't kill you. I'll carve cut after cut into your bodies until you tell me where that child is."

The other three vampires stared at the silver dagger in Meng Zu's hand in terror. When Meng Zu cut the third mark into the long-haired vampire's hand, he finally could not bear the pain any longer and shouted, "Ahhh! Stop, I'll talk! They aren't with me!"

Meng Zu withdrew the silver dagger and silently watched the long-haired vampire.

The long-haired vampire panted heavily and endured the pain in his hand. "Someone took them away three hours ago."

"Where did they go?"

"Ravensfair."

"Ravensfair? Why were they sent there? Hm!" When the long-haired vampire responded with silence, Meng Zu immediately raised the silver dagger in his hand.

The bartender, who had been quietly watching from the side, finally spoke. "For Soulstones, perhaps."

"Soulstones?" This was the first time Meng Zu had heard of them.

"A Soulstone is a small black stone. It is very useful to creatures of darkness and can strengthen them," the bartender explained.

"So they sold those children as commodities to Ravensfair in exchange for Soulstones. I'm curious—if you knew that Ravensfair or whatever had Soulstones, why didn't you sell Sam and the other children for them yourself? Why let these four have that opportunity?" Meng Zu examined the bartender. They were both vampires; there was no reason he would not be tempted by Soulstones.

"While Soulstones can increase one's strength, they carry immense hidden dangers. They are not naturally occurring objects, but manufactured ones. To make a single Soulstone, a living person must be tortured in agony until death, then their soul—twisted by that suffering—is extracted and turned into a Soulstone. During the Middle Ages, black witches skilled in dealing with souls often made Soulstones to trade with others."

"Absorbing Soulstones can indeed increase one's strength, but the resentment of the twisted souls within them affects the creature of darkness that absorbs them. Their heart gradually becomes more violent, and once they absorb too many, they turn into monsters that know nothing but slaughter."

"There are very few black witches making Soulstones in the United States now. There used to be underground rumors that Ravensfair had a black witch, since it is the only place in this region where Soulstones flow out. If you want to save those children, you should go quickly," the bartender kindly warned Meng Zu.

"Why are you helping me?"

There was no such thing as love without reason. Meng Zu had beaten up the bartender's kind and disrupted the bar's normal business. If it had been an ordinary person, he would have thrown Meng Zu out of his establishment. Help him? He must be dreaming.

The bartender said to Meng Zu, "Those four came here because of members of our family. They must have learned about Soulstones and contacted Ravensfair through someone from our family. Our family follows the rules. I don't want trouble brought upon us."

Hearing that, Meng Zu found it strange. Rule-abiding vampires... Well, it seemed that every vampire he had encountered had followed the rules.

"How do I get to Ravensfair?" Meng Zu realized he did not know the way there. A place like that should be well hidden, right?

"Ravensfair is marked on the map."

Meng Zu: (￣д￣;)

After swiping his card to pay for the broken tables and chairs, Meng Zu left. As for whether the four vampires lived or died, he did not concern himself with it. He was not with the church, and killing them would not earn him even a single Contract Point. Besides, the bartender had given him information. Although he had repeatedly claimed that the four had nothing to do with him, Meng Zu could not truly refuse to give him any face.

After Meng Zu left, the bartender looked at the four vampires and thought for a moment. A silver shortsword slid from his sleeve into his palm. Before the four vampires' astonished eyes, he swung once and severed all four heads. Their bodies instantly flared with fire, then turned into piles of ash.

The bartender took out his phone and made a call. Once the other side answered, he said, "Tell Taylor to be more careful when making friends. They brought a hunter here today."

Meng Zu drove while studying the map and calculating how long it would take to arrive. "Without a smartphone, even getting somewhere is inconvenient." He set down the map and floored the accelerator, increasing his speed.

Honestly, Meng Zu had not expected this mission to involve a black witch. Black witches represented danger. They possessed strange and dangerous spells—curses, poisons, commanding vengeful spirits, and the like were all things they excelled at. The best way to deal with a black witch was to blow his head apart with a sniper rifle from a distance.

He was reluctant to abandon this mission. After all, fifty Contract Points was a high reward. The assassin missions he usually took from the Continental Hotel were only worth thirty or forty-odd Contract Points. The Exploding Wolf Gang mission before the New Year had been worth eighty Contract Points because it required wiping out the entire Exploding Wolf Gang. The harder the mission, the more Contract Points it offered.

When Meng Zu accepted the mission from the detective agency, Sam and the others should still have been in Sault Ste. Marie. That was why it offered fifty Contract Points. Otherwise, with a black witch involved, the reward would definitely have been close to one hundred points, perhaps even more.

Of course, Meng Zu would investigate a mission like this. If it proved too dangerous, he could only abandon it. Fortunately, the system imposed no penalty for giving up missions. Completing one earned Contract Points; failing to complete it naturally earned none.

Meng Zu's current plan was to go assess the situation and see whether he could secretly take Sam away while the black witch was distracted. If that did not work, he could only abandon the mission.

A police car was parked beside several large trees off the highway, its body perfectly concealed by the trees. Its front faced the road. A young officer sat inside eating a hamburger, while a speed gun rested on the center console aimed at the highway. Police in the United States often checked for speeding this way.

Whoosh! A car flashed past, startling the young officer. He turned to look at the speed gun and saw a reading of 217. He grabbed his radio and said, "A car just went by at 217 kilometers per hour."

"Did you see the model or color?"

"No, it was too fast. Should I chase it?"

"Can you still see the car?"

The young officer stuck his head out and looked into the distance. "It's already far away. I can only see a tiny dot."

"Then forget it. Just another damn street racer."